SUMMARY
The AFL (Armed Forces of Liberia) was a militia group active in the first Liberian civil conflict (approximately 1989-1996), which was formed from the remnants of the official national army of the government of Liberia.
The national army of Liberia at first served the government of Liberia’s President Doe, but soon became demoralised and disorganised due to battlefield defeats at the hands of the NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia) during the first episode of the Liberian civil conflict (approximately 1989-1996). Overall, morale and professionalism in these forces were low even at the outset of the conflict, with AFL soldiers engaging in summary executions of suspected NPFL collaborators, and also plundering and looting villages. Morale and professionalism also decreased when the government of Liberia sought to turn the tide of the fighting by bloating the AFL’s numbers through recruiting poor and uneducated civilians and refugees into its ranks throughout 1990. The AFL soon took on the attributes not of a state army, but of a separate militia faction, with some soldiers remaining in the AFL structures, whilst others left to join other factions such as the ULIMO (United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia) and the LPC (Liberian Peace Council).
It is difficult to pinpoint the exact year and date when the AFL should be considered separate from the government of Liberia, but it became obvious at the latest in 1991 that the AFL was no longer under the command of the government. But the government presumably lost large amounts of operational control of the armed forces as soon as President Doe was killed in late 1990. The government of Liberia, by 1991, instead resorted to being primarily defended by the peacekeepers of the ECOMOG force (peacekeepers sent to Liberia by the regional ECOWAS organisation) and other more loyal sections of Liberia’s armed wings.
The ethnic politics used by President Doe, a Krahn, lead to the AFL being mainly composed of soldiers from this specific ethnic group, opposing the Mano- and Gio-dominated NPFL group. The AFL never grew to become such a powerful faction as, for example the NPFL or the ULIMO, and maintained control mainly over parts of a few major cities in Liberia throughout the conflict. The group however did exert enough influence to be included in some of the power-sharing deals signed throughout the conflict. At the start of the conflict AFL soldiers (then attached to the government of Liberia) wore regular uniforms, but as their discipline withered AFL combatants were known to sometimes wear the same type of garments as other combatants in the conflict, i.e. any type of looted goods or black magic amulets, making them more indistinguishable from the other factions of the conflict. The exact number of AFL cadres is however unclear. The group was disbanded and demobilised when the first episode of the Liberian conflict ended (approximately 1996).
The exact links the AFL had to different groups in the Liberian conflict are somewhat unclear, with support coming and going depending on the tide of the war. At the least it is clear that the peacekeeping forces of ECOMOG aided the AFL at many stages throughout the conflict, supplying them with arms and sometimes aligning with them when jostling for control over the conflict. The AFL also had operational ties to the LPC (Liberian Peace Council), another armed faction composed mainly of former Doe supporters from the so-called Anti-Terrorist Unit. The AFL also aligned in 1994 with the ULIMO-J in an anti-NPFL coalition to battle that group’s rising power. Links to outside states and groups are also unclear, but it would appear as if though the AFL maintained some links to foreign states or groups for the purposes of illicit commercial activities, such as smuggling,
Who actually commanded the AFL throughout its existence is somewhat unclear, since the organisation appears to have made use primarily of a collective leadership, with individual commanders sometimes acting in accordance to top-level directives, and sometimes not.
The AFL has been involved in the one-sided category of UCDP organised violence.
LPC (Liberia Peace Council) was an armed faction active during the first episode of the Liberian civil conflict (approximately 1989-1996) emerged as a military faction sometime during 1993.
LPC was one of many ethnic Krahn militias, the Krahn being the ethnic group that had received the patronage of President Samuel Doe during this term in office (1980-1990). The group was founded by George Boley, a Krahn politician who was in essence ousted from the government cabinet as the Liberian government fell apart at the onslaught of NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia) which entered into armed conflict with the government in 1989. The group aligned with other Krahn-dominated militias to battle NPFL, which was dominated by members of the Gio and Mano ethnic groups that opposed Doe’s regime. LPC emerged mainly as a proxy force for AFL (Armed Forces of Liberia), when that group became constrained in its actions by the 1993 Cotonou peace agreement. After this peace agreement was signed, and as was the case also after other agreements were signed, many of the factions in the Liberian civil conflict endorsed the creation of new factions that were not bound by the agreement in order to make battle field advances that could support their cause without implicating them directly.
The group was composed mainly of ethnic Krahns from the ULIMO (United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia) and AFL groups, but also drew in fighters from ethnic groups that suffered at the hands of the NPFL’s attacks. At its peak the group probably consisted of just about 4 500 troops. The group battled against NPFL mainly in southeast Liberia, where substantial amounts of money could be made from controlling the lucrative timber and rubber trades. Like most of the factions during the conflict LPC became involved in atrocities against the civilian population, one such atrocity being one-sided violence against civilians.
As stated above LPC came about through the support of AFL, and also of ULIMO, which leant both soldiers and armaments to the movement. The peacekeeping forces of ECOMOG have also been accused by various organisations of backing LPC in its struggle against the more powerful NPFL. Accusations have been levelled against ECOMOG of supplying LPC with arms and munitions, but it is unclear if this support has been sanctioned from the top or simply been given by individual commanders wanting private profits. Other than that mentioned above, links to other factions or outside states are unclear.
LPC was founded by George Boley, a member of the Krahn ethnic group who was made a Minister of State in the government of Liberian President Samuel Doe. He was previously a member of the ULIMO group, but left to found the LPC. LPC seized its activities after the 1996 peace agreement in Liberia, and Boley became a candidate in the 1997 presidential elections. He and his party however received few votes and did not gain any significant power.
LPC has been involved in the non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.
ULIMO – J (United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia- Roosevelt Johnson faction) was an anti-Taylor militia, active in combating Charles Taylor’s NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia), which had begun an attack on the government of Liberia in 1989. The group was active during the first Liberian civil conflict, which took place approximately 1989-1996.
ULIMO – J was an offshoot, or rather a splinter faction, of the original ULIMO group. ULIMO was founded in May of 1991, in Conakry (Guinea), by prominent Krahn and Mandingo politicians that had escaped the NPFL onslaught against the government of Liberia and the Krahn and Mandingo ethnic groups. The group became composed (mainly) of these politicians, along with soldiers that had left the AFL (Armed Forces of Liberia), and members of the large Krahn and Mandingo refugee populations that had fled to Guinea and Sierra Leone. ULIMO launched its campaign in the south-eastern regions of Sierra Leone, where the NPFL and the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) were making joint combat efforts against the government of Sierra Leone. The conflict however soon shifted also to Liberian territory.
Rivalries along ethnic lines soon burst into the open within ULIMO, with the movement splitting in two as Kromah (a Mandingo) attempted to make himself the overall leader of the movement, or at least lure over to his side those Mandingo who were loyal to the Krahn leadership. Control over the valuable natural resources of the Sierra Leone-Liberia border territories was also a factor contributing to this split. The split became official in April of 1994 (but had been in effect since at least some time during 1993), with one faction becoming the ULIMO-Johnson faction and the other the ULIMO-Kromah faction, split generally along Krahn (ULIMO – J) and Mandingo (ULIMO-K) lines.
ULIMO – J is not viewed in UCDP data as being involved in a state-based conflict, since it opposed not the government of Liberia, but the NPFL. Animosity between the two movements grew out of the NPFL’s general hostility towards the Krahn, in turn a consequence of the dominant place in politics and the military that this ethnic group had received under President Doe’s regime (Doe’s regime was the government of Liberia in the early years of the conflict). ULIMO – J fought to stop the NPFL from taking control of Liberia, but like nearly all of the factions in Liberia’s first civil conflict the group became embroiled in illicit commercial activities, plunder, factional rivalry and one-sided killings of civilians.
ULIMO – J was composed of three broad categories of people; Krahn elites such as former politicians and businessmen, veteran soldiers of the AFL and impoverished Krahn refugees fleeing the fighting in Liberia. The exact number of men under ULIMO – J arms is unclear, but the number was probably between 4 000 and 5 000. At the peak of its power the ULIMO – J signed peace agreements with the other warring factions, which brought the movement into a power-sharing government with, amongst others, the NPFL. These agreements, in the end, entailed the demobilisation of the ULIMO – J and its disappearance as a party to the conflict.
To pinpoint ULIMO – J’s place in the context of the Liberian civil conflict is complicated, since the group had a number of shifting allegiances and alliances throughout the duration of the conflict. In general ULIMO – J opposed the NPFL group, but at some points the group also worked together with the NFPL to balance the rising power of other factions. The group for example joined hands with the LPC (Liberian Peace Council) and the remnants of the AFL in 1996 to battle the rising threat of a joint NPFL/ULIMO-K alliance, but in 1995 maintained links to the NPFL, receiving military and financial aid from that source, as the NPFL jostled for dominance with the other factions to the conflict. Likewise ULIMO – J at times received support in its efforts from the ECOMOG peacekeeping force, whilst at other times, such as in late 1995, engaging ECOMOG in combat (in this specific instance since it did not wish to leave the valuable diamonds mines it was to abandon due to demobilisation). The relationship with ECOMOG was, however, in general a positive one. ULIMO – J at times also enjoyed the support of Sierra Leone, especially so at the beginning of the joint RUF/NPFL attack on Sierra Leone in 1991, when the group was still part of the wider ULIMO movement, and received weapons and financial support from the Freetown government. Before the split in the ULIMO cadres also received military training under the aegis of the government of Guinea.
ULIMO-J’s leader was Roosevelt Johnson, a former official of the Liberian Ministry of Finance and the deputy field commander of the united ULIMO movement. He took control of the Krahn elements of the ULIMO when ULIMO-K leader Kromah had his successor, General Karpeh, assassinated in 1992. As the leader of the ULIMO – J Johnson entered into peace agreements with the NPFL (and other factions), and became part of the power-sharing government from 1995. Johnson was however removed from the post of leader of the ULIMO – J by its executive council in March of 1996, and he was subsequently persecuted by members of his own faction and the power-sharing government. He however became a minister in Charles Taylor’s government after the elections of 1997, before fleeing the country in 1998 when Taylor turned against him.
ULIMO – J has been involved in the non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.
